Thoughts of peace

"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart." Jeremiah 29:11-13

This may be the most displayed verse in the Christian world, and the most frequently read backwards. We put it on walls as a promise of imminent success. Look at who it was addressed to.

Jeremiah is writing a letter to deportees. They are in Babylon, far from home, and prophets are announcing a quick return. Jeremiah tells them the opposite: build houses, plant gardens, marry off your children, seek the peace of the city where I have carried you. And he tells them seventy years.

It is after that that "I know the thoughts that I think toward you" arrives. The promise is not an exemption from exile. It is given to people who have just been told they will most likely die where they are.

That does not diminish the verse. It makes it usable. Because if this word only holds for people whose circumstances turn around quickly, it serves nobody. It holds precisely for the man settled into a situation that will not move this year.

"An expected end" — the Hebrew says literally an end and a hope. There will be an end. What is holding you is not your permanent state, even if you do not live to see its close.

And what follows gives you the work to do meanwhile: call, pray, seek. Three verbs, all active, and a condition that closes the passage — "when ye shall search for me with all your heart." The promise is unconditional about God's intentions; it is conditional about the meeting.

Today. Stop waiting for the exile to end before you live. Plant something where you are. A job, a relationship, a service in your assembly. The deportees who obeyed Jeremiah are the ones whose grandchildren went home.

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